Dev Chat Summary: January 31st (4.9.3 week 3)

This post summarizes the dev chat meeting from January 31st (agenda, Slack archive).

4.9.3 update

• 4.9.3 release was due out yesterday, however due to a delayed RCrelease candidate One of the final stages in the version release cycle, this version signals the potential to be a final release to the public. Also see alpha (beta). with a short testing window we've decided to build RC after today's dev chat and reschedule the 4.9.3 release to Monday, February 5th so that a release is not pushed immediately before the weekend.
  
• Note: 4.9.3 RC was released

Updates from focus leads and component maintainers

• The Editor team updated its weekly meeting time and has a separate time for a weekly GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ Issue scrub.
  
• The PHPPHP The web scripting language in which WordPress is primarily architected. WordPress requires PHP 5.6.20 or higher team has two recent meeting summaries (Jan. 22nd, Jan. 29th) posted for review.
• The JSDoc initiative has kicked off to add inline-docs for JavaScriptJavaScript JavaScript or JS is an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers. WordPress makes extensive use of JS for a better user experience. While PHP is executed on the server, JS executes within a user’s browser. https://www.javascript.com/..

Servehappy

• Question from @azaozz in latest meeting: What if the PHP education page (codename "servehappy") was not on any .org-related website, but inside of coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.?
  
• We'd like to ask for feedback on this, what are all your initial feelings on that? Note that this is separate from the prompt for the user to switch the PHP version in their hosting account.
  
• Some considerations:
  • The main condition for this to happen is to have the entire content powered by the .org APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways.. The content will be highly dynamic and may need adjustments regularly, so we must not be dependent on core releases to change it.
  • A new API endpoint would need to be built for that purpose that should send the content of all sections of the page, to some degree targeted to the current request. Parameters like the PHP version active, pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party slug (in case the user is sent to the page because a plugin requires a higher PHP version), data about the host (if available), would be part of the request. This would allow the content to target the user's problem as well as possible.
  • All content that endpoint returns should not be hard-coded, but easily manageable through a backend (maybe a special section in make.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org//core/?).
  • How is it possible to change the .org API? Who has access? We'd need to figure out how the process of working on that could be streamlined.
  • Summary of thoughts from PHP meeting recap
• Next step is for the Servehappy team (including @azaozz) to discuss this during the next PHP meeting (on Monday 16:00 UTC) and come back with a recommendation

General announcements

• @afercia uncertain about what can go in a minor release, specifically about fixes or small enhancements that require a dev notedev note Each important change in WordPress Core is documented in a developers note, (usually called dev note). Good dev notes generally include a description of the change, the decision that led to this change, and a description of how developers are supposed to work with that change. Dev notes are published on Make/Core blog during the beta phase of WordPress release cycle. Publishing dev notes is particularly important when plugin/theme authors and WordPress developers need to be aware of those changes.In general, all dev notes are compiled into a Field Guide at the beginning of the release candidate phase. given that minor releases auto-update
  
  • Changes that require a dev note in a minor releaseMinor Release A set of releases or versions having the same minor version number may be collectively referred to as .x , for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, 5.2.3, and all other versions in the 5.2 (five dot two) branch of that software. Minor Releases often make improvements to existing features and functionality., with such a short notice, don’t give plugin and theme authors the time to update.
  • As further changes to the minor release policy, best to have recommendation prepared for upcoming devchat

Next meeting

The next meeting will take place on February 7, 2018 at 21:00 UTC / February 7, 2018 at 21:00 UTC in the #core SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel. Please feel free to drop in with any updates or questions. If you have items to discuss but cannot make the meeting, please leave a comment on this post so that we can take them into account.

#4-9-3, #core, #dev-chat, #summary